Russia effectively already operates martial law in the regions it has stolen from Ukraine.

Censorship, detention, deportation, restricted rights of assembly, seizure of property, forced labour; you name it and it is happening in Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson.

In fact it is doing a lot worse. Take deportation alone. The US government reckons between 900,000 and 1.5 million Ukrainians have disappeared through filtration camps and into Russia, their whereabouts unknown.

Ukraine latest news: War entering ‘new phase’ with ‘something happening’ in Kherson

Or detention. Ukraine claims thousands have been held, tortured or disappeared during Russia’s illegal occupation.

So why impose it?

Vladimir Putin is a president who must at all costs appear strong after each blow to his prestige. As with all dictators, weakness could be terminal.

Kherson residents evacuate by boat as Putin declares martial law in four occupied regions of Ukraine

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After Russian retreats across the Donbas, he announced the annexation of those very territories he was losing.

When Ukrainians blew up his prized Kerch bridge he launched vindictive drone strikes terrorising the people of Kyiv and other cities.

Now the Ukrainians are gaining ground in the south. So much so, that last night in a television interview Putin’s new commander in Ukraine, General ‘Armageddon’ Surovikin admitted the situation there was “tense” for Russia and “difficult decisions” would soon need to be made.

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Declaring martial law helps Putin appear strong to his domestic audience at least. He is the commander “trying to resolve the difficult large scale challenges of Russia’s future”, as he put it.

Many of the Russians watching state TV tonight will see him taking tough decisions and acting decisively.

But he has two problems: One is the counter impression. To the less gullible in Russia, here is a leader clutching at straws but running out of options as his forces continue to lose what Russians must still by law call the ‘special military operation’.

But more importantly, today’s move also exposes yet again the truth behind that operation.

What was an invasion conducted by contractors and professional soldiers has sucked in hundreds of thousands of newly mobilised recruits.

And now laws kept only for times of war are being imposed for the first time anyone in Russia can remember.

Putin’s special military operation charade is crumbling for Russians. This is much bigger than what he sold them when it began and with each day what seemed remote is coming closer to home for all of them.

You can get tickets here for a special event at the Imperial War Museum looking at the war in Ukraine.

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